


to be a hero (where do we draw the line?)

by galacticglaze



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-07-24 21:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16183478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticglaze/pseuds/galacticglaze
Summary: it’s hard to feel like a hero when things aren’t going your way.((in honor of S7, a closer look at oliver queen))





	to be a hero (where do we draw the line?)

_“what you’re feeling isn’t darkness… it’s a schism. you’re at war with two sides of yourself.”_

…

_“i didn’t know you’d be here.”_  
_“you thought i was leaving, too? not a chance.”_

... 

   it’s hard to feel like a hero when things aren’t going your way.

  
   she’s standing beside him and she’s there but not _there_. she’s not his anymore _(though he has to wonder if she ever was)_ , and he has to cope with that. he’s _been_ coping with that, but… he’ll never tire of her. he longs for the times when she was an ever-present variable, unwavering and constant. now that he’s  _known_  her, nothing will be the same within him again. his entire equilibrium has been thrown off, disturbed, _destroyed_. a chemistry experiment gone wrong.

  
but then again, he’s been changing for years now. he’s been shifting like a glacier; sliding along, melting, freezing, gathering mass and losing it, wisdom like a currency or form of exchange. the only problem is, he can’t return any of it, wipe it all blank as though none of it’s happened. he used to shed girls like snakeskin, reboot and come back to life the very next day, hardly hours between each and every one, but he can’t bear the thought now.

  
people come and people go. that, at least, has not changed. the thought itself is not comforting— why bother to let someone in when all you end up doing is letting them go? why not just hold on to those you have as tight as you can?

  
she is a good example of why this cannot be done. there was no breathing room, no space for anything else. the one part of him that couldn’t change— that changed and won’t ever go back— did what it usually did, and was met with the usual backlash. it’s nature now.  
sometimes he wishes it wasn’t. but it is what it is, and those decisions he made are ones he has to deal with, past and present.

  
felicity is his future. his beginning. his _has been_ and _will be_.  
it’s startling to hear someone else describe her as their despair. she has always been his light, his fresh start, his clean slate. when rory says she is a constant reminder of all he has lost, for a second it flashes in front of him that she’s all oliver’s ever wanted.

  
but he’s a diplomat. (to an extent, that is. in this case, yes, he is diplomatic.)  
so he lets rory go.

and rory comes back, because that sunshine of his (no longer _his_ , not ever his) has managed to brighten his outlook, too. she has darkness within her but when oliver looks at her, all he sees is light.  
_like nothing ever before._

  
   the world he lived in before was just shifting colors; nothing clear, everything blurry. the mask is pulled from his eyes and kovar is speaking, saying things he doesn’t want to hear, words that make him mad mad _mad_ , words that light a fire in his brain.  
_“truth,”_ kovar rasps into his ear, face wrinkled and worn and rough, _“is a matter of perspective, mr. queen.”_  
oliver hates that he’s right. he hates that he is out of control, that he can’t do anything but be beaten on the plush carpet of the enemy’s even more lush home. a pet. an animal. something to trade.

  
there’s something about holding someone’s life in your hands. the control it gives you. the mercy you hold over them.

oliver has never felt like he had any control in his life. perhaps that was why he had gone out so much before the island. these were things he _could_ control: his alcohol intake (to an extent). the girl(s) he took home. the call he didn’t have to give the next day, the _“good morning”_ text he never had to send. he could dictate conversations, swing everything his way. with a pretty face and the power of money, there was little he couldn’t do.  
but his parents still held things out of his reach. it wasn’t his decision to go to whatever ivy league college his father had in mind; neither were the next three. he fought it, and fought hard, because he knew his future was looking like that huge, steel skyscraper with his name on the side. something big and blunt and _endless_. nothing else.

laurel wanted to get an apartment together, and he didn’t. it only felt like another piece of freedom stolen from him, something she was taking away. so he pulled strings and changed the game, boarded that boat with sara and left, trying not to think about what would change by the time he came back. as much as _ollie queen_ and _consequences_ were complete strangers, it was inevitable that they would meet eventually.  
it all felt strangling.

  
so he took to the open sea, and it opened its mouth and swallowed him whole.

  
and oliver was thrown into an entirely new world of out-of-control, one where he held no sway at all, where his face meant little to nothing and all of his parent’s money meant even less. one where his chance of survival became only self-dependent, where he didn’t have a one phone call to someone he knew would bail him out.

  
the only way people really know how to talk is with fists, he finds out. so he learns the language.

  
these are the things he can control: his body. and sometimes, if he’s lucky, his mind.

and life suddenly is one spiral to the next; shado sinking into the earth, deep scarlet red leaking from her skull— slade, eye(s) of fire and a roar that scares him more than any lion’s— disease, the stink of it, and akio, limp in his parents’ arms and tears like he’s never known, followed by swift anger, hotter than the sun— and amanda waller, drugging him and using him like a puppet, just a pawn in her giant game of chess. when he cradles taiana in his arms just before taking her life, the guilt he feels is all-consuming. he lets the tide carry him to russia, where he gets lost in someone else’s past— someone else’s mission— and decides to make it his own.

like anything else, it doesn’t come easy. but there is power behind these fingers and palms, callused by his enemies and will to survive. he doesn’t know much about living, but the moment his father uttered _survive_ to him, that became the itinerary for the next five (and maybe more) years. suddenly, only that— and little else— mattered.  
anatoly tells him he’s out of control with all this death and destruction, but it’s the only time in the last 5 years he’s felt closest to being in charge of _his_ life. as though taking it from others gives him clarity.

_control._

so when he touches down in starling, the race having begun, excitement moves through him like electricity. _at last._

_his_ mission.

now he has something of his own— though some days it will feel more like a hand-me-down from the ghosts of his past— something he is free to do whatever with.  
he’s always been good at taking on other people’s sins, anyways. eventually they begin to feel like his own.

it isn’t until tommy is dead beneath him that the cry of _murderer_ actually hits home. he’d never admit it aloud, but this was a long time coming. something dark has been brewing in him for awhile now, but he thought he could control it.  
turns out he was wrong.  
and he _hates_ being out of control.  
this is the same thing he feels when slade— that malicious ghost who could never truly stay dead, who never _really_ died in the first place— brings all the pain of the past back into his city, into his home. there is a special kind of hopelessness that comes with being bound on the ground as your mother finds out how it feels to have wind pass right through her, how blood tastes at the back of her throat.

his hands are so stained he’s not sure he’ll ever see straight again. the color red is a far cry from his favorite, but when felicity shows up to their date wrapped in shades of crimson he feels like he’s finally breathing again, like there isn’t just liquid in his lungs.

the smell of sea water isn’t so pungent when it’s covered by perfume.

seeing her on the med table less than an hour later, this same color of blood and fire dripping down her face and into her hair, he wonders if he should rethink these things.

he does.  
it takes him a minute to figure out that _so does she_. because every time he sees her and ray, breathing and blinking and _living_ , it feels like he’s chewing on rusty nails. like chain link fence. harsh, tough metal, biting into him even as he to it.  
he hates himself for thinking it, but even as she is his last thought— even with the cold metal of ra’s al ghul’s sword turning him to ice from the inside out— he is also thinking, _this isn’t so bad._

things he can control: nothing. he cannot direct where he lands when he is pushed off that snowy cliffside, not maseo appearing like a ghost from the thin mountain air and dragging him to tatsu’s hearth, nor the two of them nursing his stubborn body back to life.

   when he awakens, he is told that it was his great want, his great lust and struggle for life that saved him. it’s hard to believe when he is so, so _tired_. it’s hard to believe when this great hole through his torso never seems to stop aching. it’s hard to believe that when his heart continues beating, strong and steady as it has always been— despite fear and blood and murder— that it is something he has control of.  
he didn’t ask to wake up. he’s not sure yet if he’s even grateful he did.  
deep down, though, something is calling for home. for the cold concrete of the foundry and diggle’s harsh but rewarding slaps on the back and words of encouragement, for clean cut tools laid out for him, arrows already sharpened, for a certain tittering blonde who doesn’t know when to stop talking.  
and for a moment, when he returns, there is the briefest moment of relief, of brightness and joy and miracle. it’s only when he pulls back some of the curtain hiding his plans that things begin to go sideways.  
there is anger, and there is pain, and for this briefest moment, he wonders what he returned for.  
and this happens, and that happens, and felicity is telling him, _“i love you,”_ and he can hardly breathe for all that great, bounding life inside him, for all the life that came home to her, who longed to be _living_ and _loving_ and not dying in the foundry, not letting his blood— the little left of it— seep into the cold concrete and leave nothing more than a stain.  
he _wants_ a life, he _wants_ love, and he wants _her_.

(and she wants him.)

this is a special kind of drowning, he learns, not one with gunshots and secrets and the crashing waves closing in on a too-small-raft, but a different kind of quicksand that he gladly sinks into. this is sunlight, the stars she hangs in his solar system, and he will place her at the center of his universe and gravitate towards her— gravitate _around_ her.

but sunlight does not last forever. and he isn’t oliver queen— _he is_ but he _can’t_ be— he’s _al sa-him_ , just the arrow, all metal and no heart, no flesh but all stone and sharp edges, no room for this life he was beginning to catch a glimpse of. he’s not looking for the light anymore, just the end of the tunnel; because even if he emerges to rain or snow or hail—even nightfall— at least it will have ended.  
the world is just too loud. he wishes it would be quiet.  
his mind has never stopped working, not since his father confessed his sins (though oliver has always been far from priestly) and uttered that execution, that condemnation to years of nothing but scars; _survive_.

  
he’s already found his endgame, played through it all in his head and won. because a plan is something that, typically, he can control.

it turns out he’s wrong. and he never should have thought otherwise because _why?_  why would he ever figure anything belonged to him ever when he doesn’t even have a say in his own name?

so the plane doesn’t crash, and the world doesn’t stop. as it turns out, he still has people to save, and a pesky heart that never seems to stop beating. and, as it turns out, people would miss him.

  
(this is a thought he tried very hard to avoid, because it meant the plan wouldn’t go as smoothly as it should have— or rather, would have— considering the fallout.)

  
why is it the bad guys always seem to speak the purest form of truth? malcolm wasn’t lying when he spoke about having something to fight for. oliver climbed that cold cliffside with snow in his lungs, felt the emptiness in his chest stronger than he ever had with a sword cutting through it, and he knew what it was like to lay on the ground with the wind whistling a hole in his torso. on the bridge, with the possibility of that same outcome, with water in place of snow, something is different.

something is filling the gap.

felicity was wrong. _they are not unthinkable_. this is not just some fantasy, something made up and constructed of air and dreams. here, leaning on his shoulder, she is real— more real than she’s ever been.

this is real.

so when he finally defeats ra’s, he knows he’s won before the battle is even over. this is winning, not just in the sense of feeling the cold metal of the ring slide onto his finger— _that is something he doesn’t need, something unwanted_ — but in the warmth of her, the shiny bright smiles he feels like he’s been dying to see, starving for, thirsting after. he hasn’t been drowning in awhile, but now water feels more like more of a luxury than a death sentence.

does he dare to drink?

they hit the road, hard. and for months all he knows is sunshine, beside him in bed and holding his hand and gripping his thigh when he takes hold of the wheel to drive them into the sunset. it’s funny how simple the world has became now that the only thing he feels responsible for is her. ra’s al ghul feels miles away on that snowy mountainside, stuck in the dark and unable to touch him now but in dreams. and in dreams he is hurt, is disturbed and deprived of light, but when he wakes up she’s always there beside him, as steady and unwavering as ever. the entire experience is sometimes so unreal he occasionally lifts his shirt up when he’s in front of a mirror to make sure that the wound isn’t still there, that wind isn’t rushing through him.

(it’s been a long time since he last felt cold.)

he might be healed, but this doesn’t mean the monsters in his head don’t speak to him still.  
she talks so much she makes them quiet, though, and in the way she has led him out of his tunnel of darkness, the way he doesn’t know what kind of man he was all those months ago— that man who had nothing, not even a lust for life— _that_ tells him all he needs to know.

 

finding the ring is easy. it’s the most simple thing he has done in the past 9 years of his life, possibly even before that. he sees it in the store and he just _knows_. he’s known since he let her fingers run over that bullet-ridden laptop, years ago. maybe that’s a lie; maybe he hadn’t. but it defines nothing, and everything, and what’s more important is that he wants to marry her.  
because the life before that bright turquoise office is not one he wants to know anymore, doesn’t want to live in the world that he occupied prior. it lacks color and light and warmth, and it is something that fades each day even as it continues to haunt him.  
he realizes, though— as thea and laurel stand in their living room, in ivy town, speaking problems into the air, into this place he thought no one could ever touch, no one could ever find— that as much as he thinks he’s left his old life behind, it has, by no means, left him. suddenly the ring he has hidden in their dessert is so silly and unreasonable, because now they are going back. now they are back in dark, broken, sad star city (no longer a _starling_ ).

it’s odd; sometimes he feels like he hates this city ( _his_ city) almost as much as he loves it. it’s only much later — long, long after his talk with felicity, when he thought she left her head and heart here while her body was away with him— that he realizes something else. his girl has fallen for his home as much as he has for her, that she cares for this place almost as much as he does.  
it’s not her who runs for mayor, though, despite being the person who inspires him.

(she already inspires everything else in him, anyways. everything good, that is.)

starling is just a little more problematic than ivy town. it doesn’t, however, change his love for her. it just takes a little reminding, of course, but nothing has ever been easy for them— even as the ship rocks, they move with the waves.

  
not every day is a good day for sailing, though. oliver always seems to be in a tussle with his hope: it’s not as though it’s ever gotten any less challenging.

she leaves the ring on the table and walks on her own feet, something that feels so strongly symbolic it’s like he’s tasting metal on his tongue—

and yet he can’t put his finger on it.

she’s her own woman. he hasn't ever questioned otherwise, it’s just that sometimes he has to remember that they are not the same unit, that when she leaves she won’t always take him with her.  
and that doesn't mean he’ll be able to convince her to let him come along, either. even still… he’s not alone, not quite.

  
even still, even as he wrangles with this darkness, and even though they are no longer together, she is still his biggest supporter. it means they still share love. it means she does not stop caring for him. it means that he will still not hesitate to come to her aid should she ask.  
it means that he glows golden with hope, this hope so sharp and bright it extinguishes just as it enlightens. it means she makes mistakes just as everyone else does, that she forgets this sometimes, and when a reminder comes it nearly tears her apart. it means he can still comfort her in some ways, if not others.

it means he is capable of sending an arrow through the heart of a man who, for a brief moment, seemed so dark he would put out all the lights of the world.

(it means they’ve taken lives while trying to save them, but this is a story for another time.)

it means _you thought i was leaving, too?_  
it means _not a chance._

  
from the clouds, a sliver of light— but only for a moment.  
back into the darkness they go.

 

_**FIN** _

**Author's Note:**

> So, i've never really written a real, linear-kind of fanfic... or even much fanfic at all, actually; this originally was an odd kind of character study, really. i started this just after s5 in june of 2017, when i was very enrapt and involved in the arrow fandom, and continued it as s6 progressed. i didn't end up covering all of s5, though, and i felt this was a good place to end it & that forcing the rest of the season in would affect it too much.
> 
> this is just my perspective on oliver, what maybe his transition from year to year is like and a glimpse further into the man he really is. because I didn't cover anything past the very beginning of s5, i might continue this in the future.  
> until then,  
> thanks for reading!


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